For all the talk in the creative industry of balance, wellness and mental health, most of the time we're all running on coffee-fuelled nervous energy. Deadlines all come at once. Feedback demands a complete rethink of a project, when you least expect it. Client meetings get fraught and overrun... any of this sound familiar?
For this reason, across my 30-year career, I've always jumped at the chance to try new gadgets, techniques and philosophies that might help me to relax. Many have done absolutely nothing for me. A few have taken the edge off. But even fewer have actually helped my overactive brain to actually relax.
The Neurosonic Serene is one of the rare few to do the latter. It's a reclining chair from a Finnish wellbeing technology company that runs low-frequency vibrations of between 20 to 100 hertz. This small amount of vibration is nowhere near the dramatic effect you get from those coin-operated massage chairs you find in airports. But it's enough, the thinking goes, to gently prod your nervous system into a calm and relaxing state.
Now, this is not about ergonomics – if you want the best office chairs to ease you back pain, we've got a fully-reviewed list for that. But this is still very much in the world of self care. Neurosonic were kind enough to let me use one for a couple of months, and to cut to the chase, I can report that it very much worked for me.
What's it like?
The Serene looks like a cross between the kind of reclining chair you might see in a therapist's office and a first-class seat on plane. It's essentially a moulded shell in soft fabric, with a leg rest, backrest and neck support that you can adjust using a simple control panel in the right-hand arm rest. Eight transducers inside the frame deliver the vibration.
It's not really possible to sit up straight in it, although at minimum recline it is possible for me to do some work on my laptop. It should not, though, be seen as a replacement for your day-to-day office chair: this is strictly aimed at R&R.
Using the included app, which you can either download to your phone or use on the supplied tablet, you choose from four programme types, titled Relaxation, Recovery, Activation and Power Nap, each targeting either the parasympathetic system for calm or the sympathetic system for an energy lift.
I began on Relaxation and found the vibration to be subtler than expected: it's more a low hum moving through the legs and gradually up the body than anything overtly mechanical. In fact, when I first switched it on, I wasn't certain if it was actually working.
Once you make peace with the subtlety, though, you start to appreciate its effects. And in my case, the main benefit was that it let me switch my mind off; far more than just sitting in a static chair would be. Was that effect physical, psychological or a mixture of both? Honestly, I couldn't tell you, but in a sense, who cares? The important thing is that it works; for me, at least.
Recovery, meanwhile, is when you've just come off a run, a gym session, or a long day on your feet at a festival: it focus is on getting blood moving through tired muscles. Then there's Activation, which ramps the body up rather than winding it down. After ten minutes on this setting I felt properly awake, rather than jittery (which is typically what I feel after a strong coffee).
Power Nap is the setting I've ended up using most, though, mainly because it fits into my working day so well. It runs for just ten minutes and I've found it a handy way of resetting during that mid-afternoon slump. Again, whether it's physical or psychological I couldn't say, but it definitely works for me.
What I like most about Neurosonic, by the way, is the honesty of their pitch. They aren't promising miracles or medical breakthroughs. The people I spoke to agreed that a lot of the effect comes simply from to giving your body permission to stop; something most of us creatives are terrible at doing.
An investment in wellness
Now, the drawback. The Neurosonic Serene sells at £4,490 / €4,990, which is not an amount many individual creatives can lay their hands on. That price is unlikely to come down, either, because these are a well-built, sophisticated products that are in no way cheap to make.
If you're a studio head, though, you might be making a different calculation. Creative agencies are only as good as their people, and many already spend heavily on getting talented creatives through the door and keeping them there. So in that light, the Neurosonic Serene starts to make a lot of sense.
The argument for investing in your staff's wellness, even in challenging economic times, is straightforward. A designer who's slept properly and isn't running on Red Bull and adrenaline will create better work than one who's exhausted. They'll probably take fewer sick days and be nicer to work with too.
At a guess, I'd reckon one chair in a studio's breakout space, available to a team of 15-20 for a ten-minute reset between briefs, would be a relatively affordable way to turn workplace heath around and boost team bonding. In that light, it starts to feel less like a frivolous luxury and more like a sensible investment in your organisation's future.
If all this has piqued your interest, Neurosonic runs in-person demos and has been placing chairs in hospitality and corporate settings so people can try before they buy, including at the Six Senses London members' club. So it might be worth getting in touch and seeing what they can do for you.
